Ecko Rising

Landed on the tarmac like a lump of...

“Yeah, right.” Ecko was tense, adrenals flickering. He was aware of Amethea’s bruised stare, Redlock’s pacing agitation. “I didn’t fucking die.” The ’bot, the screaming London weather, falling. “Eliza put me here to Save the World.”

Even as he said it, it sounded ridiculous.

“Eliza!” The name was a guffaw. “They’d waste that sort of expense on you? I’m in the profession, you might say. And I know your profile, Gabriel – you’re a screw-up, a screaming pyrophile, a madman. Untreatable.” He was still laughing. “And now a megalomaniac. Save the World, my left nut.”

I know your profile, Gabriel. Ecko found that he was crouched on his seat, trembling. Gabriel. He spat, “My profile?”

“Steady, my friend,” Roderick said quietly. “I know his trickeries of old – he baits you.”

Amethea’s voice was soft. “Don’t trust him.”

“Your profile.” Maugrim had lost his laughter, his voice was cold. “This isn’t some psychoprogram, you little freak, your own personal Virtual Rorschach.” The word was spat. “Who the hell would care about you that much?”

I am the pattern, the pattern spreads from me.

Megalomaniac.

His voice as clear as blind faith, Roderick said, “We do. He came here to help us.”

“I’m the one helping you, you bloody lunatic.” Maugrim was on his feet. “You know this, Rick – you explained it to me! You’re stagnant, no progress – your people have just let everything go, forgotten their lore and culture, forgotten it all. Like Pilgrim – it’s all apathy! Terhnwood and trade and tedium. Passionless. You know what I mean – we should tear it down, kick over the anthill. Progress has to happen or we’ll all fucking rot.”

Triqueta muttered, “You call that progress?”

“Of course I do!” Maugrim jabbed a ringed finger at her. “This is a fantasy, right? Sword’n’saucery, good’n’evil, law’n’chaos – Ecko, you know this shit as well as I do. And fantasy worlds have to have the Bad Guy, the Necromancer, the Lord of Dark – why? Because without him – or her – paradise’d be pointless. Unchallenged, unremarked. How can you get achievement with no struggle, satisfaction with no effort? How do you value anything when it’s just handed to you?”

How can you value anything...?

Ecko was caught. His own beliefs, distorted, slung back at him like a handful of toxic mud.

“This ends now.” Redlock muttered darkly. The axeman, at least, was clear of purpose. “All of it.”

“It’ll never end, warrior. While your terhnwood grows, while your trade cycles, you’ll disappear so far up your own arseholes you’ll lose sight of everything else. In the end, you’ll whine about the small shit because it’s all you’ll have left.”

Roderick said, “Wait a minute – wait. You said, ‘While your terhnwood grows...’ What’s going to happen to it? Phylos...?” His voice faded into horror, anticipation and realisation. “What is Phylos going to do?”

Maugrim laughed, threw his head back and guffawed at the ceiling. “You’re not as bloody green as you’re cabbage-looking, are you, Rick?”

“By the Gods.” The Bard was out of his seat. “I’ll carve the damned answer out of your skin if I have to! What is Phylos going to do?”

Maugrim stretched, grinned like a challenge.

But Ecko was no longer paying attention. In Maugrim’s zeal, he’d heard The Boss’s philosophy, Lugan’s battle against Pilgrim, the death of the woman he’d burned on the shit-hole bed.

Take away the big shit – it’ll be all you’ve got left.

As Maugrim faced the Bard, Ecko’s breathing was tightening, his boosting half kicked. He was poised on the precipice of its speed, its certainty... He wanted to embrace it, it would surge beyond doubt, beyond conscience... but he dared not let it go. The Sical’s might may scream in his veins, but its master was here – here, from his own world, from his own head.

This isn’t some psychoprogram, you little freak, your personal Virtual Rorschach.

What if... Chrissakes! His own doubts, his flickers of emotion and compassion. What if this was real? He couldn’t wrap his brain round the possibility. What if there was no program – what if... Panic was closing his throat. The walls of the tavern were dark, closed-in. There were weapons everywhere he looked.

“We’ve got every right to carve your answer from you.” Amethea’s voice was clear, cold. “You’ve committed torture, rape, murder, corruption – you’ve rained fire from the sky, set your creatures on Roviarath and that – thing – would’ve torn the Varchinde asunder.” She was as calm as still water. “I’ll wield the damned blade myself.”

“Little priestess, Amethea.” His voice was almost affectionate. “Your crimes are as bad as mine – and you know it.”

“No more, Maugrim.” She stood up. “No more head games, no more trickery, no more coercion. No more blood. Feren was my friend, my responsibility, his courage puts all of us to shame. I’ll pay whatever dues I have to – but you must answer for everything you’ve done. And not just to me.”

“Nice speech,” Maugrim told her. He stretched further back in his chair, grinning. He fumbled for something in the pocket of his cut-down.

Amethea stared at him, daring him to speak again. He twisted a smile at her.

“Feren’s memory isn’t lost.” Redlock leaned in and said softly, “You say you’ve walked the very Halls of the Rhez. Can you torture him, healer? In vengeance? In cold blood?”

“I’ve never taken a life,” Amethea said. “The stallion asked me...” She broke off. “I’ve never taken a life.”

Road hardened, blood covered, the axeman said, “Keep it that way.”

Roderick silently clapped his shoulder.

“The stallion was loco, anyhow,” Triqueta said, nudging her elbow. “Didn’t last too long.”

Maugrim chuckled. “Poor creature, my heart breaks for it.” He was wrapping something in his hand. “Losing a pet can be heartbreaking... though you can always go down the store for another one. The herd goes on, little lady. It was my gift – not my creation. Wouldn’t fit through the tunnels, y’know?”

He stretched further still, blazing with confidence, arms behind his head.

“You still haven’t told us where they came from.” Triq eyed Maugrim’s lazy pose with contempt. “Sitting there all damned smug – we’ve got you by your short and curlies, sunshine, and you’re going to spill it. All of it. Or I’m going to show you what a woman can really do.”

Maugrim’s gaze ambled all over Triq’s lithe body. He smirked.

“No offence, sweetheart – you’re a bit long in the tooth for me.”

She spluttered. “You – !”

“Don’t bother,” Amethea told her. “He’s just prodding you, making you react. I think he finds it amusing.”

“Well, I’m going to find him amusing in a minute.” Triq crossed her arms, glared. “Who made the monsters?”

Roderick said, “What is Phylos planning?”

Maugrim laughed outright at them.

Lost by the whirl of interrogation round him, Ecko was only half listening to the exchange. His mind was stumbling, reaching, reeling, questioning, spinning like a centrifuge round one word: real.

It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be – like a true believer who’d lost his faith, he was searching for meaning in a sudden vacuum, the vacuum in which Eliza and her program had lived. He was responsible for his own choices, had been all along: he wasn’t being manipulated or tricked, wasn’t following a pattern...

But –

This had so been done to him! He’d jumped, out into the freezing wind from Grey’s rooftop, out into Eliza’s program and the fight against the corruption of his mind.